Page:EB1911 - Volume 18.djvu/816

MONTHOLON, CHARLES TRISTAN,Marquis de (1782-1853), was born at Paris. He was trained for a military career, and in his tenth year shared in the expedition of Admiral Truguet to the coast of Sardinia. Entering the army in 1798, he rose with rapidity and avowed himself, when chef d'escadron in Paris at the time of the coup d'état of Brumaire (November 1799), entirely devoted to Bonaparte. He served with credit in the ensuing campaigns, and distinguished himself at the battle of Aspern-Essling (May 1809) where he was wounded. At the end of that campaign on the Danube he received the title of count and remained in closing attendance on Napoleon, who confided to him several important duties, among others, a mission to the Archduke Ferdinand at Würzburg. At the time of the first abdication of Napoleon at F ontainebleau (April 11, 1814), Montholon was one of the few generals who advocated one more attempt to rally the French troops for the overthrow of the allies. After the second abdication (June 22, 1815) he with his wife accompanied the emperor to Rochefort, where Napoleon and his friends finally adopted the proposal, which emanated from Count Las Cases (q.v.), that he should throw himself on the generosity of the British nation and surrender to H.M.S. “Bellerophon.” Montholon afterwards, at Plymouth, asserted that the conduct of Captain Maitland of the “Bellerophon” had been altogether honourable, and that the responsibility for the failure must rest largely with Las Cases. Montholon and his wife accompanied the ex-emperor to St Helena. To Montholon chiefly, Napoleon dictated the notes on his career which form so interesting, though far from trustworthy, a commentary on the events of the first part of his life. Montholon is known to have despised and flouted Las Cases, though in later writings he affected to laud his services to Napoleon. With Gourgaud, who was no less vain and sensitive than himself, there was standing feud, which would have led to a duel but for the express prohibition of Napoleon. Las Cases left the island in November 1816, and Gourgaud in January 1818; but Montholon, despite the departure of his wife, stayed on at Longwood to the end of the emperor's' life (May, 1821). In a letter written to his wife he admitted that Napoleon died of cancer, though he afterwards encouraged the belief that death was due to a liver complaint aggravated by the climate and by the restrictions to which Napoleon was subjected. After that event Montholon and Bertrand became reconciled to Sir Hudson Lowe (q.v.); but this did not prevent him, on his return to France, from vilifying that much abused man. Colonel Basil Jackson found him very frank as to the politique de Longwood which aimed at representing Napoleon as a martyr, and Sir Hudson Lowe as his persecutor. Montholon admitted that an “angel from heaven as governor would not have pleased them.” Montholon had to spend many years in Belgium; and in 1840 acted as “chief of staff” in the absurd “expedition” conducted by Louis Napoleon from London to Boulogne. He was condemned to imprisonment at Ham, but was released in 1847; he then retired to England and published the Récits de la caplivité de Napoléon à Ste Héléne. In 1849 he became one of the deputies for the Legislative Assembly under the Second French Republic. He died on the 21st of August 1853.

MONTH'S MIND, in medieval and later England a service and feast held one month after the death of anyone in his or her memory. Bede speaks of the day as cornrnemorationis dies. These “ Minding days ” were of great antiquity, and were survivals of the Norse minne or ceremonial drinking to the dead. "Minnying Days,” says Blount, “from the Saxon Lemynde days which our ancestors called their Monthes mind, their Year's mind and the like, being the days whereon their souls (after their deaths) were had in special remembrance, and some office or obsequies said for them, as Orbits, Dirges.” The phrase is still used in Lancashire. Elaborate instructions for the conduct of the commemorative service were often left in Wills. Thus, one Thomas Windsor (Who died in 1479) orders that “on my moneth's minde there be a hundred children within the age of sixteen years, to say for my soul,” and candles were to be burned before the rood in the parish church and twenty priests were to be paid by his executors to sing Placebo, Dirige, &c. In the correspondence of Thomas, Lord Cromwell, one in 1536 is mentioned at which a hundred priests took part in the mass. Commemorative sermons were usually preached, the earliest printed example being one delivered by John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, on Margaret, countess of Richmond and Derby, in 1509.

MONTILLA, a town of southern Spain, 'in the province of Cordova, 32 m. S. of the city of Cordova, by the Cordova-Bobadilla railway. Pop. (1900), 13,603. The oil of the district is abundant and good; and it is the peculiar flavour of the pale dry light wine of Montilla that gives its name to the sherry known as Amontillado. Montilla was the birthplace of “ The Great Captain, ” Gonzalo or Gonsalvo of Cordova (1453-1515), and contains the ruined castle of his father, Pedro Fernandez de Cordova.

MONTLOSIER, FRANÇOIS DOMINIQUE DE REYNAUD,Comte de (1755-1838), French publicist, was born at Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dome) on the 16th of April 1755, the youngest of a large family belonging to the poorer nobility. He was returned in 1791 to the Constituent Assembly, where he sat on the Royalist side, and he emigrated on its dissolution in September 1791. He was received into the emigrant army at Coblenz after some protest against the Liberal leanings he had shown in the Assembly. After the cannonade of Valmy, he withdrew to Hamburg, and thence to London, where he avoided English society, moving exclusively among the French exiles. In his Courrier de Londres, published in London, he advocated moderation and the abandonment by the exiles of any idea of revenge. He was recalled to Paris in 1801, with permission to publish his paper in London. The Courrier was soon suppressed, nevertheless, its editor being compensated by a comfortable sinecure in the ministry of foreign affairs. Next year he sold his pen to the government to edit the violent anti-English Bulletin de Paris. At Napoleon's request he undertook an account of the ancient monarchy of France, which should serve as a justification for the empire. After four years' labour Montlosier submitted his work to a specially appointed committee, by which it was rejected because of the stress laid on the feudal limitations of the royal authority. The work De la monarchies française on recherche surles anciennes institutions françaises . .et sur les causes qui ont arnené la revolution... appeared in 1814 in three volumes, a fourth and supplementary volume in the next year containing a preface hostile to Napoleon. His views were no more acceptable to Louis XVIII. than they had been to the emperor, and he devoted himself to agriculture until he was roused by the clerical and reactionary policy of Charles X. His anti-clerical Mémoire d consult er sur un systeme réligieux, politique...(1826) rapidly passed through eight editions. He had no part in the revolution of 1830, but supported Louis Philippe's government and entered the House of Peers in 1832. He died on the 9th of December 1838 at Blois. Ecclesiastical burial was denied him because he had refused to abjure his anti-clerical writings.

MONTLUC (or MONLUC), BLAISE DE LASSARAN-MASSEN-COME,Seigneur de (c. 1502-1577), marshal of France, was born about 1502, at the family seat near Condom in the modern department of Gers. He was the eldest son, and his family was a good one, but, like most gentlemen of Gascony, he had to